Online CRM Can be Your Success Tool….

Yes, that’s right, my claim in this article is that your business management software or online CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can be the key to success in 2011!
Seriously, where I’m coming from is that most people and certainly sales people have negative or self limiting thoughts going through their mind all the time.

An Online CRM can solve a very common sales problem…

For example – one of the biggest problems common among sales people is what sales trainers term “Call Reluctance”.  It means that you’re too slow to pick up the phone and dial, meaning that the overall volume of calls you make is too low to have a chance to get you to your sales goal.  Call Reluctance is primarily a symptom of fear of rejection or the fear of hearing NO from your customer.  Anyone that’s ever had any success with cold calling knows that the trick is to stop listening to the voice in your head that keeps reminding you about all the things that might go wrong with each call.

I’m no mind control expert, I’m closer to a customer relationship management expert.  What I do know is that if you’re busy dialing the phone, your mind doesn’t have enough free consciousness to focus too much on what might go wrong.  You have to read the phone number from your crm system, punch it into your phone and prepare to greet the customer.

So how can an online CRM help with this?

Well, it can make it easy for you to know which customers to call and measure how many you’ve called so far and how many you still need to make today, this week, this month.
This is a simple example but, the same effect can be achieved with a business crm no matter what the most crucial step you should be taking.  A fundamental objective of any customer relationship management system is to present each user with the most important things they need to do today.
If the online CRM is set up properly, when you should have a daily task list that gives you everything you need to just start dialing the phone, preparing proposals or sending emails.
So, in my view there are two things that most frequently keep sales people from succeeding –

•Failure to clearly define the series of steps that must be taken with each prospect to lead them to a purchase – the sales process

•Inability to focus their mind on taking positive action (working the sales process) instead of what might go wrong – fear.

For more on the challenge of ignoring negative messages your mind presents you with and focusing taking constructive action – read this interesting article.

And, in fact, that is exactly what a well designed and implemented business CRM will do.  Sure, there are a lot of open source crm and free crm solutions that try to make things super simple.  But, one size fits all rarely works.  Professionals experienced in setting up crm systems will tell you they need to be tailored to each and every unique business.
That really means defining your sales process and working that process through your crm system.

We’ve all been doing our end of 2010 wrap ups and 2011 planning.  Most small businesses I’ve been associated spend a considerable amount of time each winter mapping out the strategy for getting to your goals in 12 months.  So, you KNOW what needs to be done.  You know how to find a lead, qualify it and close it.  Its just a matter of doing enough of it.
The only thing standing between you and success in 2011, is finding a system to keep you executing on those objectives.
I have a challenge for you – try SalesNexus Online CRM for 3 months this year and if you’re not already seeing the results in April, I’ll give you your money back.